At a demonstration in China on Oct. 25, Microsoft's chief research officer Rick Rashid revealed a new technology seemingly straight out of "Star Trek." In the classic sci-fi television show, a gadget known as the "universal translator" (as seen here) was used to decipher languages in the 22nd century. And now, Microsoft has created a program that takes spoken English and translates it to spoken Chinese in real time.

Pretty futuristic, right?

"In the realm of natural user interfaces, the single most important one -- yet also one of the most difficult for computers -- is that of human speech," Rashid wrote on the company's blog.

Speech recognition has made achingly slow progress, as Rashid tells it. First, speech recognition was done by matching waves from spoken sounds with those known to be associated with certain words. In the 1970s, scientists built statistical speech models by analyzing many speakers' voices.

In 2010, Microsoft made another breakthrough, it says, by analyzing speech with computer programs that patterned themselves on human behavior. Microsoft says it was able to "reduce the word error rate for speech by over 30 percent compared to previous methods."

The MIT Technology Review notes that the tech giant has previously demonstrated "synthesized speech to match a person's voice," but the prototype was only able to speak typed text. This latest translator quickly understands spoken words (which is a feat in itself), while also picking up on the cadence of a user's voice.

"In other words, we may not have to wait until the 22nd century for a usable equivalent of 'Star Trek’s universal translator," Rashid said. "[A]nd we can also hope that as barriers to understanding language are removed, barriers to understanding each other might also be removed."

Of course, Microsoft has plenty of competition in the realm of voice recognition software. Apple has produced Siri, the iPhone's voice-controlled assistant, while Google has created the Google Search voice app, dubbed the "Siri Killer." But both consumer products are still rife with errors, leading some customers to mock these services via Tumblr and snarky blogs.

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Microsoft's Worst Gadget Flops

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The Microsoft Kin smartphones debuted in April 2010. Marketed for teens, the devices were priced at $50 for the Kin 1, $100 for the Kin 2. Less appealing were Verizon's $70-per-month subscription plans, as were early reviews calling the devices "not smart enough" and "downright ugly." In June, Microsoft pulled the plug on the Kin family and focused exclusively on Windows Phone 7.

The Courier Tablet, leaked in 2009, was expected to be announced shortly before the iPad's debut in January 2010. According to rumors, the device would have featured two seven-inch screens that folded shut. However, this innovative twist on the tablet PC never saw the light of day. Microsoft instead unveiled a comparatively "underwhelming" single-panel tablet device called the HP Slate, which PCWorld called "a mediocre device" and "a big disappointment." By late April, both the Courier Tablet project and the HP Slate were tabled.
UPDATE: A post written for the official Microsoft Blog in 2010 clarified that the Courier "project" was never an official Microsoft product. The statement read: "At any given time, across any of our business groups, there are new ideas being investigated, tested, and incubated. It's in Microsoft's DNA to continually develop and incubate new technologies to foster productivity and creativity. The 'Courier' project is an example of this type of effort and its technologies will be evaluated for use in future Microsoft offerings." The HP Slate was the result of a partnership between Microsoft and Hewett-Packard.

The first hand-held devices built on Microsoft's unique Ultra-Mobile PC platform launched to ample buzz in 2006. This new class of powerful mini-devices, which accepted pen and touch input, never caught on. The first U.S. release, the Samsung Q1, received poor reviews because of its hefty price tag ($1,099), buggy software, and odd keyboard design. Other releases suffered similarly.

Microsoft's answer to the iPod hasn't had a good run. The Zune's share of the mp3 player market peaked at 10%, slumping to 2% in 2009, according to Investor Place. Bloomberg reported that Microsoft would be killing off its music player due to "tepid demand" and cease releasing new models, though it would continue developing the Zune software.
UPDATE: Microsoft announced on October 3 that it "will no longer be producing Zune players."

Microsoft's MSN TV (aka WebTV) was a service that allowed users to access the Internet via their televisions. The product, which may have been ahead of its time, was ultimately a flop, failing to attract more than 1 million subscribers.
The Financial Times wrote of Microsoft's efforts, "Surfing the TV on a keyboard and web browser sounds about as enticing as pushing a rickety shopping cart across the plush carpet of a designer boutique."